


Grandfather

by mercredigirl



Category: Batman Beyond, Batman: The Animated Series, DC Animated Universe, DC Universe
Genre: Community: mundane_bingo, Family, Gen, Generation Gap, Languages, Wakes & Funerals, batfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-09
Updated: 2010-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercredigirl/pseuds/mercredigirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All her life, Stephanie called him Grandfather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grandfather

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://mundane-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**mundane_bingo**](http://mundane-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) prompt **parents/adults speaking in another language so the kids don't know what they're talking about**.
> 
> And, yes, I have taken Dana's surname to be 谭 rather than 陈。

All her life, Stephanie called him Grandfather. He wasn't _really_ her grandfather, of course; he was not blood of her blood, nor was he ever married to Grandma Mary. Nor, despite the insinuations that the tabloids occasionally make slyly, was Grandma Mary ever his mistress. But he took Dad for his own son, made him his heir and let him run his companies. And taught Dad, of course – she has no illusions about who Grandfather was, not even as a child – she's just supposed to never mention that.

Sometimes Stephanie could almost pity Grandfather. She doesn't know how she'd ever live with secrets the way he did, nor how he enveloped everyone around him in that dark leather cloak of shame, guilt, lies. She respected Grandfather. Impossible not to. She pitied him still, though.

There are two names in the city which command instant reverence, whose owners have – in the minds of the people – become almost legendary, synonymous with such qualities as justice and strength and power. There's Grand-aunt Barbara's name, which is no longer associated with her father, which is wholly hers; and there's Grandfather's.

Stephanie thinks, at times, that that's a pity too. Grandfather never got the chance to be _just_ a man.

Dad and Mum are talking in a corner by themselves now, their voices lowered. Everywhere in this funeral parlour, the voices are kept low, so much that their hushed whispers rise up like a susurration about her now, more a chant in a cathedral than the anxious murmurings of mourners.

The papers will wonder why the wake was closed, why there was no chance for the citizens of New Gotham to rend their clothes and beat their breasts and change into sackcloth. The broadsheets which still remember Grandfather's heyday will carry appropriate tributes to his philanthropy, to the visions realised by his wealth. There will be loyalty, of a sort. In truth, she knows, Grandfather's time has passed; her classmates hardly recognised his name, its cachet lost to myth-making.

But the funeral parlour is full, all the same, because the truly great men and women and persons of this planet knew Grandfather, lived and struggled and fought alongside him – maybe for nothing, maybe for something – and trusted and loved him in a way, in the end.

Stephanie looks around, tries to pick out the faces that she knows, extrapolates the identities of those she doesn't.

Aunty Helen, near the entrance, sitting stiffly with a mantilla over her face. The old lady called herself Helena Kyle, once, and claimed kinship with Steph's late Grand-aunt Selina. Whether that is true or not, Stephanie can't judge, but Grandfather always encouraged her to address Helena's daughter as cousin. Rosa looks up from beside her mother's wheelchair, catches Steph's gaze, and nods briefly.

Grand-aunty Shay, bowed beside the casket, her wings gathered in and her heavy coat pulled tight about her. The crowd gives her a wide berth, so that she is supported only by Uncle Rex. Stephanie doesn't have to ask why. Even Grand-aunt Di tries not to speak of Aunty Shay without reason. Later Steph will have to thank Aunty Shay for coming, will have to embrace the bird-woman and smell the must and regret.

Uncles Kal and Orin, very composed, cutting distinguished figures with their long grizzled locks and their unconsciously kingly stance. They are like a diptych: two patriarchs, masters of air and sea, lords of their domain, standing by their fallen comrade. Stephanie is young enough to still be slightly awed by that.

Uncle Tim, Uncle Conner, and Aunty Cassie, together as they've always been and always will be. Steph has heard the story, told to her in whispers and rumours, of what happened to Uncle Tim – of what was _done_ to Uncle Tim. She also knows the story of the woman for whom she was named. Uncle Tim's blood-father was Jack Drake, but there are, Stephanie knows, many kinds of parenthood in this line of work. Grandfather wept for Uncle Tim in the old days, and Uncle Tim returns those tears now, shoulders shaking with heavy sobs.

Stephanie looks away.

Dad and Mum are shooting her the occasional glance, and she can read what they say from the way they hold themselves, as Aunty Cass taught her. Dad knows how to hide the language of his body, and Mum probably could, as well, but they are unguarded here, in this sea of grief.

 _Steph's growing up_ , Dad's saying, _and I've lost both my fathers without ever understanding truly what they stood for till it was too late._

 _You're not taking her on the job_ , Mum retorts, raising her hands expressively. _Look at her. She doesn't belong in this business. I'm not saying she ought to go into management – Heaven knows I don't think she's cut out for it, either – but it's not so clear-cut as that, you know, not just computers or capes._

Mum's got a point, thinks Stephanie ruefully. She's decked out nicely in a drab black blouse and a flared black skirt, a good college student with her straight black hair and polite half-smile and wide expressive eyes and completely no ability, at all, for lying her head off, other than what's necessary to protect her family. You can tell – just by looking – how different her comportment is from, say, Aunty Merina's daughter Dolphin, or Aunty Lian's son Kyle, who practically _scream_ 'cape' if you know and read the signs.

Steph sidles a bit closer to her parents, trying to catch their conversation better, but they're speaking in Canto, and while she can manage Mandarin passably well she can't speak her mother's dialect at all. One more thing she has in common with Grandfather, then; Great-grandmother Martha, whom nobody else here has even heard of, was a Yiddish-speaker, and Yiddish was one of the few languages Grandfather couldn't manage. Grand-uncle J'onn used to curse him in Yiddish, sometimes.

Canto doesn't stop Stephanie from not understanding what her parents are saying – because every family with a cape in it will have gone through this argument at one point or another – but she supposes that this is how they will mark Grandfather's passing, and that this is what his death means, in some way: the loss of one generation, always a loss to all.

She picks her way to a seat next to Grand-aunt Barbara, who _was_ Grandfather's niece and mistress both, and sits there silent, Grandfather's life like a mantle on her shoulders.


End file.
